When an ex-lover gets more charming
Feb 10, 2005
I have never understood people who like Hugh Grant as an actor of romantic comedies
Film: Bridget Jones: Edge of Reason
Stars: Hugh Grant, Renée Zellweger
Director: Beeban Kidron
Screenplay: Andrew Davies, based on a novel by Helen Fielding
Running time:108 mins.
Rating: R for language and sexual content.
Showing at: Cineplex, Garden City from Friday
Preview by: Kalungi Kabuye
I have never understood people who like Hugh Grant as an actor of romantic comedies. Somehow he manages to piss me off every time I am forced to watch one of his silly films.
Last year around this time he was very unimpressive in Two Weeks Notice with Sandra Bullock. It is Valentine’s Day again, and again he is back, this time in the sequel Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason, and hundreds of you hopeless romantics will queue up to watch him make an ass of himself, yet again.
This film picks off where the first left off, with Jones (Renee Zellweger) living comfortably with her lawyer lover Mark Darcy (Colin Firth). But things are not really what they seem to be. Jones is madly jealous with the time Darcy is spending with his colleague Rebecca (Jacinda Barrett).
A noticeably much plumper Jones still depends on questionable advice from her three friends, Sazzler (Sally Phillips), Tom (James Callis) and Jude (Shirley Henderson). They will back her in anything, even a very unreasonable argument with Darcy.
Still working with a TV show, she is sent to Thailand on assignment, only to find that her former lover Daniel (Hugh Grant), is already there.
Knowing very well that this is a man she should absolutely have nothing to do with, but still in a huff because of the fight she had with Darcy, she allows him several liberties she should not have. In comes Darcy to the rescue, and of course the inevitable clash.
Just what was the appeal of the first movie? Was it Jones, naïve, but still looking for and believing in love? Was it the way she got into all sorts of trouble, and how innocently she expected to get out of it? Or was it, as some critics are wont to write, because we could all have a good laugh at her expense?
The New York Times’ Manohla Dargis had this to say: “...what is the appeal of laughing at her swishing thighs, her lack of charm and obvious intelligence? The film’s director, Beeban Kidron, took obvious delight in this unhappy view, too. She either really disliked her star or thinks humiliating other women is great sport.
Whatever the case, you have to wonder why all these women relish the spectacle of a normally well-coiffed, highly paid Academy Award-winning actress, who dates rock stars no less, looking so bad.â€
Stars: Hugh Grant, Renée Zellweger
Director: Beeban Kidron
Screenplay: Andrew Davies, based on a novel by Helen Fielding
Running time:108 mins.
Rating: R for language and sexual content.
Showing at: Cineplex, Garden City from Friday
Preview by: Kalungi Kabuye
I have never understood people who like Hugh Grant as an actor of romantic comedies. Somehow he manages to piss me off every time I am forced to watch one of his silly films.
Last year around this time he was very unimpressive in Two Weeks Notice with Sandra Bullock. It is Valentine’s Day again, and again he is back, this time in the sequel Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason, and hundreds of you hopeless romantics will queue up to watch him make an ass of himself, yet again.
This film picks off where the first left off, with Jones (Renee Zellweger) living comfortably with her lawyer lover Mark Darcy (Colin Firth). But things are not really what they seem to be. Jones is madly jealous with the time Darcy is spending with his colleague Rebecca (Jacinda Barrett).
A noticeably much plumper Jones still depends on questionable advice from her three friends, Sazzler (Sally Phillips), Tom (James Callis) and Jude (Shirley Henderson). They will back her in anything, even a very unreasonable argument with Darcy.
Still working with a TV show, she is sent to Thailand on assignment, only to find that her former lover Daniel (Hugh Grant), is already there.
Knowing very well that this is a man she should absolutely have nothing to do with, but still in a huff because of the fight she had with Darcy, she allows him several liberties she should not have. In comes Darcy to the rescue, and of course the inevitable clash.
Just what was the appeal of the first movie? Was it Jones, naïve, but still looking for and believing in love? Was it the way she got into all sorts of trouble, and how innocently she expected to get out of it? Or was it, as some critics are wont to write, because we could all have a good laugh at her expense?
The New York Times’ Manohla Dargis had this to say: “...what is the appeal of laughing at her swishing thighs, her lack of charm and obvious intelligence? The film’s director, Beeban Kidron, took obvious delight in this unhappy view, too. She either really disliked her star or thinks humiliating other women is great sport.
Whatever the case, you have to wonder why all these women relish the spectacle of a normally well-coiffed, highly paid Academy Award-winning actress, who dates rock stars no less, looking so bad.â€